Beyond family‐level adversities: Exploring the developmental timing of neighborhood disadvantage effects on the brain

A growing literature suggests that adversity is associated with later altered brain function, particularly within the corticolimbic system that supports emotion processing and salience detection (e.g., amygdala, prefrontal cortex [PFC]). Although neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage has been shown to predict maladaptive behavioral outcomes, particularly for boys, most of the research linking adversity to corticolimbic function has focused on family‐level adversities. Moreover, although animal models and studies of normative brain development suggest that there may be sensitive periods during which adversity exerts stronger effects on corticolimbic development, little prospective evidence exists in humans. Using two low‐income samples of boys (n = 167; n = 77), Census‐derived neighborhood disadvantage during early childhood, but not adolescence, was uniquely associated with greater amygdala, but not PFC, reactivity to ambiguous neutral faces in adolescence and young adulthood. These associations remained after accounting for several family‐level adversities (e.g., low family income, harsh parenting), highlighting the independent and developmentally specific neural effects of the neighborhood context. Furthermore, in both samples, indicators measuring income and poverty status of neighbors were predictive of amygdala function, suggesting that neighborhood economic resources may be critical to brain development.     

Exploring the relationships between maternal and child metacognitions and child anxiety

Research has shown that anxiety may be transmitted through verbal information pathways, for example, when parents share their anxious cognitions with their child. Less is known about the influence of parental metacognitions, that is, beliefs regarding thoughts, on child anxiety. We explored the relations between metacognitions in mothers and their children and anxiety in the children. Our study included 111 non‐clinical children aged 8 to 12 years and their mothers. Children rated their metacognitions, worry and anxiety, and mothers rated their metacognitions. Results indicated agreement between maternal and child metacognitions. Maternal metacognitions were positively associated with children's anxiety symptoms and worry, and this relation was mediated by the children's metacognitions. Our results warrant further examination of the role of parental metacognitions in child anxiety.     

MFT Program Policies on Referral of LGBT Clients

The purpose of this exploratory study is to examine program policies that govern whether or not student therapists can refer lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer clients, based on the therapist’s religious beliefs. We conducted a qualitative survey with program directors of Commission on Accreditation for Marriage and Family Therapy Education—accredited marriage and family therapy programs to ask what policies monitor client referrals that are solely based on the therapist’s beliefs toward sexual orientation and gender identity. Implications revolve around finding congruency between the program’s philosophy, policy, expectations for students, and ethics. We provide recommendations for addressing these issues early on in the recruitment process.     

Bilingual enhancements have no socioeconomic boundaries

To understand how socioeconomic status (SES) and bilingualism simultaneously operate on cognitive and sensory function, we examined executive control, language skills, and neural processing of sound in adolescents who differed in language experience (i.e. English monolingual or Spanish‐English bilingual) and level of maternal education (a proxy for SES). We hypothesized that experience communicating in two languages provides an enriched linguistic environment that can bolster neural precision in subcortical auditory processing which, in turn, enhances cognitive and linguistic function, regardless of the adolescent's socioeconomic standing. Consistent with this, we report that adolescent bilinguals of both low and high SES demonstrate more stable neural responses, stronger phonemic decoding skills, and heightened executive control, relative to their monolingual peers. These results support the argument that bilingualism can bolster cognitive and neural function in low‐SES children and suggest that strengthened neural response consistency provides a biological mechanism through which these enhancements occur.     

Think Leader, Think Male and Female: Sex vs. Seating Arrangement as Leadership Cues

This investigation challenged the long-accepted male-oriented ideology of “think male, think leader” by using social and gender identity theoretical frameworks to examine same-gender biases and the situational leadership cue of the end-of-the-table position. In an experiment consisting of 241 undergraduates enrolled in a large southwestern university in the U.S. (105 men, 135 women, and 1 sex unreported), participants viewed diagrams of male and female figures, in either same-sex or mixed-sex groups, and selected a leader. The end-of-the-table cue held, but the 120 participants (74 women, 46 men) shown mixed-sex groups with a man and a woman shown at both ends of a table chose same-gender leaders significantly more than opposite-gender leaders. Whereas the results suggest that the “think leader, think male” ideology still holds among young men, findings also demonstrated a shift away from this ideology among young women.     

Immersion in the surface1

In order to treat patients with a narcissistic structure showing a rigid shell of defence together with a lack of inner differentiation – insufficient subject/object constitution – one has to deal with a split kind of transference. Their compelling need for distance corresponds to their fragile self‐esteem. They feel threatened by the analysis and the analytic relationship. Because the seeming normality of these patients’ thinking and language is deceptive, a variation of psychoanalytic technique to facilitate the work with them is described and explained in detail. To transform their two‐dimensional ‘inner’ world, which functions in a PS modus, it is helpful to show them, with changing viewpoints step by step, their own manoeuvres, misconceptions and manipulative use of language within the analytic relationship. The gratifying extension of their self‐awareness leads to the introjection of the analyst’s alpha‐function. This makes possible a more distinct separation of subject and object representations and a transformation to a three‐dimensional, oedipally structured world with a strengthened capacity to symbolize. This method of working is grounded in Bion’s theory of thinking. A case vignette illustrates a development of this kind.     

Internalized Misogyny as a Moderator of the Link between Sexist Events and Women’s Psychological Distress

This study examined the relationship between internalized misogyny and two other forms of internalized sexism, self-objectification and passive acceptance of traditional gender roles. In addition, it examined the moderating role of internalized misogyny in the link between sexist events and psychological distress. Participants consisted of 274 heterosexual women who were recruited at a large southern university in the United States and completed an online survey. Results indicated that internalized misogyny was related to, but conceptually distinct from self-objectification and passive acceptance. Findings also indicated that greater experiences of sexist events were associated with higher levels of psychological distress. In addition, internalized misogyny intensified the relationship between external sexism and psychological distress.     

Effects of alcohol sensitivity on P3 event-related potential reactivity to alcohol cues.

Although alcoholics and individuals at risk for alcoholism often show smaller amplitude of the P3 event-related brain potential (ERP), recent data (K. Namkoong, E. Lee, C. H. Lee, B. O. Lee, & S. K. An, 2004) indicate that alcohol-related cues elicit larger P3 amplitude in alcoholics than in controls. Little is known concerning the ERP profiles or alcohol cue reactivity of social drinkers at risk for alcoholism due to low sensitivity to alcohol's effects. Participants differing in alcohol sensitivity viewed images of alcoholic and nonalcoholic beverages while ERPs were recorded and provided information about their alcohol use patterns at baseline and 4 months later. Compared to high-sensitivity participants, those low in sensitivity showed larger P3s to alcohol cues, even when recent alcohol use was statistically controlled for. Moreover, the P3 elicited by alcohol cues predicted alcohol use at follow-up, a finding supporting the idea that P3 amplitude reflects the motivational significance of substance-related cues. These findings point to risk status, not consumption history, as an important predictor of cue reactivity effects.     

Prospective associations of co-rumination with friendship and emotional adjustment: considering the socioemotional trade-offs of co-rumination

Co-ruminating, or excessively discussing problems, with friends is proposed to have adjustment tradeoffs. Co-rumination is hypothesized to contribute both to positive friendship adjustment and to problematic emotional adjustment. Previous single-assessment research was consistent with this hypothesis, but whether co-rumination is an antecedent of adjustment changes was unknown. A 6-month longitudinal study with middle childhood to midadolescent youths examined whether co-rumination is simultaneously a risk factor (for depression and anxiety) and a protective factor (for friendship problems). For girls, a reciprocal relationship was found in which co-rumination predicted increased depressive and anxiety symptoms and increased positive friendship quality over time, which, in turn, contributed to greater co-rumination. For boys, having depressive and anxiety symptoms and high-quality friendships also predicted increased co-rumination. However, for boys, co-rumination predicted only increasing positive friendship quality and not increasing depression and anxiety. An implication of this research is that some girls at risk for developing internalizing problems may go undetected because they have seemingly supportive friendships.